Holmes under the hammer
Could you afford to live in the homes of Britain’s best-loved dramas? Our experts price up TV’s most famous addresses
Properties play a major role in these tales – home is, after all, where the heart is. So Which? Mortgage Advisers took 10 top shows and calculated the cost of the homes.
It’s fiction but except for Buckingham Palace – countless royal dramas – and the main outdoors Downton Abbey location – Highclere Castle in Berkshire – you can find similar homes.
Which? Mortgage Advisers looked at what real-life buyers would need to do to buy each property.
A typical terraced house in Coronation Street would cost £100,000. With three bedrooms, it would be ideal as a first family home. There’s no stamp duty on properties under £125,000 and some lenders will only require a £5,000 deposit.
In Gavin and Stacey land – Barry Island in south Wales – a two bedroom terraced house with a coastline view costs about £130,000. You would need a £6,500 deposit with some lenders.
Moving up – literally – to the £220,000 Croydon, south London, flat featured in Peep Show. It’s a two bedroom flat with a balcony near a busy railway station – good for transport but not so quiet. It could need redecoration after Mark and Jez – and it’s more likely to attract a landlord.
Higher still – but remaining in south London, the Trotters’ Peckham flat from Only Fools and Horses would fetch around £330,000. It has great views over London but as a high rise block, getting a mortgage could be tough. This is likely to be for cash buyers.
EastEnders is set in fictional Walford – an amalgamation of Walthamstow and Ilford, two areas that have seen giddy price rises over the past few years. Many long standing residents could no longer afford their own homes.
A three bedroom Victorian in Albert Square would cost about £875,000. Stamp duty would add £33,750 to the bill.
Not far away from Walford, Joey Essex’s (The Only Way is Essex) home in Chigwell is valued at £1.6m. Lenders will probably want a minimum 15 per cent deposit £240,000 – and you would need a large income for a mortgage as well.
There is no 221b Baker Street but there are plenty of similar flats in the area at around £1.7m for a real Sherlock Holmes. Getting a mortgage could be tough. Leaving aside the bullet holes in walls, lenders may steer clear of flats above shops.
Anna Scott’s flat in the film Notting Hill will fetch £4.9m. For the seriously rich only, the stamp duty alone comes to £501,750 – or five Coronation Street homes.
If you could buy Downton Abbey, you ‘d pay around £72m.
No one can buy Buckingham Palace but a similar home in London, if it existed, would fetch £2.2billion, well beyond any conventional mortgage.